THE PERFORMANCE OF A PRESTRESSED CONCRETE PAVEMENT. FINAL REPORT

Concrete pavements are in constant motion due to daily and seasonal thermal cycles. These thermal cycles cause concrete pavement slab ends to undergo both horizontal and vertical movement. This movement is subjected to wheel and gravity loads, and this develops stresses in the concrete. The amount of movement and stress determines the ultimate serviceability of the concrete pavement. Since PCP slabs are relatively long, the longitudinal and vertical movement are significant and must be considered in design. In 1985 approximately one mile of PCP pavement, consisting of a group of sixteen test slabs, was placed to verify the design by collecting and studying the performance data on these test slabs. This report describes in detail the instrumentation techniques used in the collection of the horizontal and vertical displacements, the associated climatic changes, non-destructive deflection tests and analyses, the background and theory of the analytical models, and the calibration of the models.